Newbi Needs Advice on Buying Used Laptop

Hardware
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Newbi David here and I want to learn LINUX. I want a recommendation on buying a used Windows laptop, 4 years older or more so I I currently use a Windows 11 MiniPC.
I want to be able to install either Linux Mint, Elementary or Ubuntu onto the laptop and slowly learn Linux! Any suggestions? Tks for any response - D.N.

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Hi @dnavratil98 ,
I just wanted to say hello and to let you know that I think
buying a separate machine to learn Linux on is a good idea.
It will be much less complicated than trying to multiboot your
PC.
I am not expert on laptops, but I do have a refurbished Dell tower. It has been a success.
Hang on. Someone who knows laprops will advise you

Regards
Neville

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Welcome to Itā€™s Foss @dnavratil98,

I have owned several laptops, mostly Dell and Lenovo. Only problem I ever had with Linux was with a laptop-tablet. The laptop also had a pointer device. Got around the problem with some research.
Also all my laptops were used and I brought them off e-Bay from high positive sellers. I am not recommending e-bay for you, I am just saying that I had good luck with it.

So bottom line, just about any laptop should work just fine. Many say Linux actually works better with older equipment. A SSD is nice as is 4 GB of ram, but neither is required for Linux.

Good luck with learning a new OS and please return with any questions and/or problems.
Linux Mint user.
Howard

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Iā€™ve had good luck with both Elementary and Ubuntu on both Dell and HP laptops for the past ten years or so. I havenā€™t used Elementary in about two years. Ubuntu 22.04 and 24.04 seem to work well for me.

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Welcome to the community David.
I would suggest you look at the requirements for each distro your looking into and select a laptop that exceeds those requirements.
The manufacturer, model, etc really doesnā€™t matter much just remember that all computers run on smoke. You let the smoke out and they wonā€™t run anymore.

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Pretty much what everyone else saidā€¦

Iā€™ve had good luck buying used Dell and Lenovo laptops off e-bayā€¦

My current main Linux laptop is a Lenovo E495, with Ryzen 5 CPU and Vega 8 GPU. It was about $400 AUD (from e-bay in 2022 - that works out to around $260 USD), came with 8 GB DDR4 and 256 GB NVMe SSD.

I had spare DDR4 RAM already, so boosted it up to 16 GB, and got a 1 TB NVMe SSD (canā€™t remember how much it cost).

I run Pop!_OS mostlyā€¦ But Iā€™ve run Ubuntu LTS and Fedora 36 on it - but going to stick with Pop!_OS 22.04 for the forsee-able future (the next version of Pop!_OS probably wonā€™t have X11, it will use the Cosmic desktop and pure Wayland - but I need X11 as Symless Synergy still doesnā€™t full support Wayland).

You could probably get something like an i7 Dell Latitude 7270 for beer money - try and get as much RAM and SSD as your budget allows for, minimum 8 GB RAM, and 512 GB SSD.

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NewEgg (as well as others) usually has office computers for less than $100. Mine is a Compaq Small Form Factor 6300. They will likely all work, be less than ten years old, and run any Linux quite nicely when you clean out the Windows. The advantage is that they are more easily modified/repaired than any laptop. Mine got an extra hard drive and doubled RAM. Laptops are overrated.

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There is a small town near where I live that has a computer recycling company called Midwest Computer Brokers. They sell mostly computers from larger businesses that are off lease. Iā€™ve looked a bunch but bought nothing so far. They mark them up a bit more than I think is needed for what you get versus what you could buy elsewhere and new. But there are lots of SFF from HP and Dell.

https://mcbia.com/

This one seems like a pretty good deal. The screen is a bit small for me but hookup to an external monitor and I would be happy.

$340.00 Lenovo ThinkPad E14 Core i7-10510, 1.80 GHz 16 GB RAM 512 GB SSD 14" screen

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I have two older Dell laptops, one had W7 installed and one had W8 installed. Both have been upgraded to 16GB of ram, with SSDā€™s installed, both are running W11 with Virtualbox and running Gentoo Linux in a VM, and that is all the Linux I really need.
My advice would be to update to W10 and install Virtualbox, and then learn Linux through a VM, a lot safer than trashing a good running laptop!!!

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It does not matter what make or model you buy they are all much the same. Second hand purchase is always risky as to why its up for sale. But as long as it runs and you dont spend a fortune on it as a learning machine not a problem.

Go for a hard disk rather than a ssd as if it fails easy and cheap to replace

Try to get 4 gb memory

Boot it up and make sure it runs and the power supply functions in that it charges the battery

Look underneath and see if the bottom can be accessed by screws in case you at some stage want to change the disk or memory, new machines have clips rather than screws and can be hard to open if needed plus a removable battery so you can run on mains only as after 4 years that could go.

And if all else fails you can always post a question here to get advice on linux questions

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Our local Goodwill sells flatscreen monitors for $20 or less. Most of the off-lease SFF machines come with a keyboard. Iā€™d avoid a used laptop.

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Thanks to all responses. I think I was too quick to ask a question!! My 1st question should have been a recommendation of what distro to use! Iā€™m leaning toward Ubuntu, Linux Mint or Elementary and which of these distros have good forum responses for newbies. I think the most important part of my learning Linux is finding a good forum.
I tried learning Ubuntu about 12 years ago and when having questions their home site forums were terrible. I always started off my questions stating Newbie Needs Help, after asking the question I would either get no replys or such a techical answer I finally gave up! Tks, David

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Hi David,

Well look at the response you got here. I donā€™t believe you will have a problem with support here. I feel that ā€œItā€™s Fossā€ is not only a very friendly group of people, but the advice and support is top notch.

You will find all 3 Linux distroā€™s you are interested in are in the top 10 of recommended Linuxā€™s for beginners. Also Linux Mint and Ubuntu are listed in the top 10 of the most popular Linux releases according to DistroWatch.

I was a ā€œNewbieā€ when I joined this forum 5 years ago (March 2019).

Have a god day.
Howard

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I have observed that the non-aligned forums tend to give better quality answersā€¦ eg stackexchange
Among the distros you mention, Ubuntu probably has the best
forum, in terms of quality of answers.
Over all distros, Arch has the top quality documentation.

It depends what you want from a forum. I find that most questions have been answered before, so all you need to do
is search.

The main thing involved in learning is hands on practice.
Keep backups and dont be frightened of making mistakes.
Forum help is second to that.

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Hey Dnavratil98, I recently moved on from Ubuntu to openSUSE Tumbleweed. As such, I think I can enlighten why so many people recommend Ubuntu or Linux Mint for people who are knew to Linux. Around October 2022 is when I installed Ubuntu (it was not my first time, but I had a very long break of like 4 and a half years). A few weeks ago is when I replaced Ubuntu.

Ubuntuā€™s actual native documentation is not much to write home about. That said, since Ubuntu is so popular, there are tons of websites that are dedicated to documenting problems and fixes. This means if you run into a problem, you will likely find multiple solutions. For a less popular distro you might have to decipher the solution given for Ubuntu so it can apply to your case.

In addition, since Ubuntu is bigger, it is more likely that the packages will already exist in apt or Snap. Of course, the really popular packages exist almost not matter what distro you use, but some of the less popular ones might not exist in a less used distro. This might mean that the best way to install the package might be to go to the GitHub package for the software you want and then compile it. But, there again you will sometimes find instructions that are only written for Ubuntu, or at least there arenā€™t instructions for you specific distro. Usually, the commands for actually building the package are the exact same, but the dependencies will have different names for the different distroā€™s package managers.

So far, I have not found these problems to be overwhelming, and in fact I kind of find it rewarding to have to work through the problem a bit more. Also, I donā€™t want to oversell how often this happens. At least with openSUSE, this is a rare occurrence, but it almost never happened with Ubuntu. That said, I think this is why so many people recommend Ubuntu or Linux Mint. When you are just starting, you donā€™t want to have to deal with these problems, especially since once you have some more experience, they wonā€™t be that serious anymore.

Overall, its the lack of 3rd party resources that make using Ubuntu and Linux Mint relatively easy. Its the route I went, so I have to say it is a good way to go about it.

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Can I add MX to that list of relatively self contained distros.
MX is the most popular distro for a reason.

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MX is listed as most popular on Distrowatch, but thatā€™s just how many times the MX page on Distrowatch is hit.

As I do quite often, I asked Copilot. It says Ubuntu.

What is the most used Linux distribution for desktop?

Certainly! Letā€™s explore some of the most popular Linux distributions for desktop usage. Keep in mind that popularity can vary based on different factors, but here are a few well-known ones:

  1. Ubuntu: Ubuntu is one of the most widely used Linux distributions for desktops. Itā€™s user-friendly, has a large community, and offers Long-Term Support (LTS) versions that receive updates for several years. Ubuntu uses the GNOME desktop environment by default.

  2. Linux Mint: Based on Ubuntu, Linux Mint provides a more traditional desktop experience. It comes with the Cinnamon desktop environment, which resembles the classic Windows interface. Linux Mint is known for its stability and ease of use.

  3. Fedora: Fedora is sponsored by Red Hat and is often used by developers and enthusiasts. It features the GNOME desktop environment and focuses on cutting-edge software. Fedora emphasizes security and innovation.

  4. Zorin OS: Zorin OS aims to provide a familiar interface for Windows users. It offers a customizable desktop environment and comes with pre-installed software. Zorin OS Lite is a lightweight version suitable for older hardware.

  5. Manjaro: Manjaro is based on Arch Linux but provides an easier installation process. It offers multiple desktop environments, including Xfce, KDE Plasma, and GNOME. Manjaro is popular among power users and those who enjoy rolling release updatesĀ¹.

Remember that the ā€œmost usedā€ distribution can vary depending on personal preferences, regional trends, and specific use cases. Feel free to explore these options and choose the one that best suits your needs! :blush::penguin:

Source: Conversation with Bing, 5/4/2024
(1) 10 Most Used Linux Distributions of All Time - Tecmint. 10 Most Popular Linux Distributions of All Time.
(2) 5 best Linux desktop distributions | TechRepublic. 5 best Linux desktop distributions | TechRepublic.
(3) 8 Best Desktop Environments For Linux. 8 Best Desktop Environments For Linux.
(4) How to choose the right Linux desktop distribution for you. https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-choose-the-right-linux-desktop-distribution-for-you/.
(5) Top 10 Linux Desktop Distributions in 2024 ā€“ TecAdmin. Top 10 Linux Desktop Distributions in 2024 ā€“ TecAdmin.

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Where does Copilot get its info?
I guess my mix of MX, Void and Gentoo makes me a fringe dweller

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It did give its sources at the bottom. :slight_smile:

Itā€™s all kind of a popularity contest really. Not exactly better or worse.

For the computers I use it on at home (not allowed to at work unless I can sneak it in), Ubuntu works great. I havenā€™t used many other distros for years. Iā€™ll typically try something in a VM for a couple weeks, but not sure thatā€™s a real test either.

For a ā€˜newbiā€™, Ubuntu would be good because it mostly just works. There is wide support for sound, video, and network drivers. They donā€™t limit themselves to open source for drivers and that helps. Plus, there are a ton of places to get help for Ubuntu online and in books and software too. Being based on Debian helps with software availability.

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You are just a radical user just as I am, love my Gentoo!!! If Windows XP still had browser support, I would still be using XP!!!

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